


Twenty-Nine Towels and a Box of Pancake Mix

by LacePendragon



Category: Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five
Genre: Comedy, Developing Friendships, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humour, Shenanigans, Walmart, post episode two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 17:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16351040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LacePendragon/pseuds/LacePendragon
Summary: With the BF5 staying in Handlers, in Vert’s house, they’re gonna need supplies. Time to hit the only Walmart in a four hour radius and hopefully not do anything stupid.





	Twenty-Nine Towels and a Box of Pancake Mix

**Author's Note:**

> This fic took ten years for no good reason. Enjoy some feel good dorkiness and some innuendo.

In the span of a week, Vert had gone from living alone in the desert as the only mechanic in about a hundred-mile radius to living with five other people and an alien, having a massive underground base, and being basically a race-car driving superhero fighting aggressive furries and evil robots.

Suffice to say, he wasn’t exactly equipped to handle five other people and an alien. Thankfully, Sage could make everything she needed, but the others needed things. Like clothes, and furniture, and food. Maybe some towels. Or… whatever else it was people needed to live. Beer? Soda? Spaghetti-O’s?

…Vert wasn’t great at this ‘adulting’ thing, despite both living alone and being twenty-two. He basically lived at Zeke’s diner when it came to food, to the point where, when he’d opened the fridge to get sodas for the others, he’d found two six-packs of root beer, a half-finished bottle of vodka, some spoiled orange juice that looked like it was growing a new friend, a bottle of mustard, two pickles in a bowl, and exactly six packets of ketchup from a McDonalds.

There wasn’t even a McDonalds within an hour’s drive of Handler’s Corners. He didn’t even _like_ McDonald’s ketchup. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d _been_ to a McDonalds.

Also, there had been an empty Taco Bell wrapper. Vert didn’t want to think about how he’d ended up with an empty Taco Bell wrapper he didn’t remember eating the Taco Bell from.

But, as his buddy AJ had always said, you didn’t go to Taco Bell. You _ended up_ at Taco Bell.

Regardless, (though, technically, because of) his inability to function as an adult without diner food meant that he and the others had to go shopping. So, the morning after they’d all gone on their first mission, Vert and the others loaded up into an SUV, a truck, and a convertible he had in the garage, which made up most of his (functioning) car collection, and drove the two hours from the ass-crack of nowhere to Salt Lake City.

The Cortez brothers and Stanford took the SUV, partially because Spinner and Stanford apparently both loved dance music, Agura took the truck, and Zoom and Vert ended up in the convertible, with Zoom in shotgun. Vert may or may not have asked Zoom if he wanted to ride with Vert, but it was no big deal.

Sure, maybe Zoom had a mild case of hero worship.

And sure, maybe Vert was already picking favourites out of his new friends and teammates.

But he could handle it, really.

Vert led the way, only speeding a little bit (or a lot) once he got out of Sheriff Johnson’s jurisdiction, and with the music blasting and Zoom cheering and laughing at Vert’s stupid jokes, while providing quite a few of his own, it wasn’t long before the six ended up in the parking lot of what Vert had always assumed was a fever dream or some kind of capitalist nightmare: a Walmart the size of a small town.

“Is that even legal?” asked Spinner. He slid down and dropped to the ground in front of the SUV, only wobbling a bit. And yeah, maybe Vert had the SUV hiked almost as high as a Hummer, but it was a custom job for AJ, presuming he could find a way to get it to him.

“The size or the blatant show of mass consumerism turned into a form of mandatory torture?” asked Sherman.

“I understand those words individually,” said Zoom. Then, he turned his gaze toward the Walmart and bounced up and down on his heels. “Oh man, I’ve never actually been in one of these!” He darted off toward the doors. “Come on, guys!”

Vert shook his head and followed Zoom, the others trailing a few steps behind him. It was probably a good idea to make sure Zoom didn’t get lost in the produce aisle and get drowned by the automatic sprinklers.

Or something. He’d only known the guy for like, a day and a half. It was hard to read any of them really well. Though Zoom was easier than the others, if only because he seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve.

“All right,” said Vert, reaching out to stop Zoom before he ran into the store. “We’re here for a couple of things. Groceries, because I have none.”

Agura pinched the bridge of her nose. “You have vodka, root beer, and two whole condiments. ‘None’ is an understatement.”

Vert grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, true.” He cleared his throat. “We also need clothes – whatever you need to keep you going until your stuff gets shipped over.” The longest was probably two weeks, for Zoom, and Stanford had gotten two-day shipping from Wales. “I know Walmart isn’t ideal, but I’m not made of money.” Stanford looked like he wanted to say something to that and Vert gave him a flat look. Stanford closed his mouth.

“And, finally, we need furniture. Find what you want for your rooms, decorations and blankets and all that, and grab what fits in the cart. Everything else, write down the numbers so that we can get them checked out and shipped to the garage.” He looked at the others to make sure they all were on the same page. “Everyone good?”

They all nodded. Vert clapped his hands together. “All right, have fun. Try to keep it under six grocery carts if you can.”

With that, the others all took off around him. They streamed into the store one at a time, Zoom going first, then Stanford, then the Cortez brothers. Agura stayed behind, her arms folded across her chest.

“How are you affording all this?” she asked. Vert shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets, meandering into the store. Agura kept pace beside him.

“My mom gave me a huge budget when I first moved down here. All of it was for renovations, furniture, the works.” He shrugged again. They passed through the doors and a sharp blast of cold air hit him from the ceiling. He grabbed a cart from the long line of them next to the door and pushed off toward the homeware section. He was probably going to need more dishes and cutlery, and maybe some pots and pans. He sort of only had… one pot and two pans. And one of those pans had a friend he’d never managed to scrape off. “I never really spent any of it. Just put it in a savings account.”

“Huh,” said Agura. She reached out onto a shelf and snagged an entire jumbo box of Dove soap bars. When Vert raised his eyebrow, she shrugged. “Boys smell.” Vert nodded. “So, what’s going to happen when you tell your mom you spent all that money on food and furniture for a bunch of new roommates?”

Vert bit the inside of his cheek and managed a wry smile. “Honestly?” Agura cocked her eyebrows at his question. “She’ll probably send me a bunch more money to celebrate me getting friends that aren’t Grace.” He thought about it for a second. “Or Zeke.”

With a snort, Agura said, “That’s kind of sad.”

“Yeah.” Vert sighed, ducking his head a little. “Yeah, it is.”

Agura shook her head. “You know, you’re not nearly as put together as you look.”

“I look put together?” asked Vert. Huh. That was new. He always figured he looked kind of like if a jock and a theatre kid had a baby and then it got raised by a bunch of homeless race-car drivers who liked barbeque chicken. And maybe a dog that was also a pirate.

…Which was way too specific but listen, he’d had a lot of time to himself over the last year. And Grace would only talk to him for so long when she was supposed to be working. And Zeke mostly wanted to talk about aliens.

No one needed to know how many episodes of _Vlador’s Quest_ Vert had seen because of that man. _No one._

Especially not Zoom.

And Vert really needed to get a handle on his growing affection for Zoom, because he’d known the guy for less than two days and he was already willing to kill a man for him.

He really hoped Zoom didn’t ask him to kill a man.

Because he was reasonably certain he would do so without thinking about it.

And then Sheriff Johnson would have an _actual_ reason to arrest him.

And Vert was pretty sure he couldn’t get away with murder. He wasn’t nearly smart enough and, besides, he hated true crime shows.

“Sort of,” said Agura, shrugging. “I have shit to buy. I’ll find you later.” She stretched her arms above her head and walked off, humming to herself.

Vert glanced down at the cart and shrugged. Well, looked like he was alone again. He was used to it by now. With a second shrug, Vert headed into the grocery aisles to pick up some of the things his mom had always called ‘staples’. Bread, milk, eggs, rice, a bag of potatoes…

He wondered where the vegetables were in this Walmart. He’d only ever been here once or twice before, and one of those times had been when he was a kid, maybe ten years old, with his mom. He’d spent the entire time half asleep in the bottom part of the cart, too tired to care about anything but a nap and the pillow his mom had given him so that he could sleep.

As Vert went through the aisles, bit by bit, he managed to figure out a couple of things to buy. Obviously, the staples his mom always kept, but also pasta, some cheeses, a thing of yogurt (for Sherman) and a thing of cream (for coffee, Agura was fancy like that), plus a bunch of other things that just looked good. It wasn’t like he was too worried about money today, seeing as his mom would help him out with anything he went too far with.

She kind of had a lot of money in reserves.

Partially because she was secretly famous and partially because she’d never spent most of his dad’s life insurance pay-out. She’d been saving most of it for Vert to go to college. Which he’d never done.

Instead, he’d become a sleazy race car driver and spent his weekends balls deep in anyone who looked at him twice, regardless of gender. The cuter, the cheekier, the better – and if they were in a uniform, well, hey, he wasn’t one to complain. Especially once it was on the floor.

He really needed to like, stop, doing things like that. Especially now that he had a team. Couldn’t exactly be bringing home every random tourist that stirred something in his gut. He had an image to keep, after all. Team leader, home owner, responsible adult. Or something like that.

Yeah. Something like that anyway. Which mean it was time to be a better person.

…He’d see how long that lasted.

While Vert was pondering in the frozen food section if three-dollar pizzas were a viable food source, Stanford came up with his arms laden with weird organic shit.

“Almond milk?” asked Vert, snagging a carton as it fell out of Stanford’s arms. Stanford dumped the rest into the cart. Vert gave him a flat look. “How do milk an almond?”

Stanford sniffed. “It’s much more sophisticated than _cow_ milk, I assure you.”

Spinner snorted as he and Zoom came up the aisle, laden down with popsicles and other frozen treats. Vert made a note to buy some coolers and bags of ice before they left the store, so nothing would melt on the way home.

“Translation: he’s definitely lactose intolerant,” said Spinner, rolling his eyes.

Zoom’s face wrinkled, his lips pursing and brow furrowing over his nose. “Lack toast?” he echoed. “Why does he lack toast?”

Vert chuckled under his breath, covering his mouth with one hand to hide it.

“Lactose, not lack toast,” said Vert, struggling not to grin. “It’s a protein in milk, or something. Probably makes him sick.”

Zoom kept staring. “There’s milk in toast?” he asked.

Spinner grinned and looked up at Zoom, dumping all the ice cream into the cart, which was now half full. “Zoom, what number language is English for you?” he asked, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

“Uhh… fifth? Sixth?” said Zoom, tipping his head to one side. “I dunno, somewhere around there. Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, uuhhh, I’m pretty good with Vietnamese, then English. Pretty sure I’m passable with Taiwanese, maybe, kinda sorta, so maybe seventh? I dunno, something like that.”

Vert blinked. _Fuck_ that was impressive.

“Did you learn on the internet?” asked Spinner, still grinning.

Zoom ducked his head and coughed, red rushing across his face and bringing out the freckles that dotted his cheeks. “Fanfiction, mostly,” he mumbled.

Vert’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I so have to know what fandoms,” he said, shaking his head a bit. “Anything I’d know?”

Zoom grimaced and dumped his ice cream into the cart. “You know what? I’m gonna go look at furniture. Bye!” He took off, disappearing around a corner before Vert could even blink.

Spinner grinned. “So, what do we think, definitely porn?”

“Oh yeah,” said Vert. He held out a fist and Spinner bumped it. “Just gotta find out what.”

Stanford shook his head. “Perhaps if you two had spent less time reading fanfiction and more time outside, you’d be less…” He hesitated, pursing his lips. “Well, you.”

Vert raised both eyebrows and gave the most shit-eating grin he could manage. “Stanford, the things I learned off the internet have been _more_ than useful in providing _fun_ outside of it.” He let every bit of tease and cockiness he could manage slide into his voice. His fingers curled around the edge of the cart and he leaned forward. “Just because you don’t know the finer details doesn’t make them less true.”

With that, he took the cart and pushed off down the aisle, deciding that maybe frozen pizza wasn’t the best food source.

“Now, I’ve got food to buy that isn’t weird nut water,” he called over his shoulder. “Go find some clothes!”

Stanford huffed and walked off, Spinner gapping as he trailed after Stanford, toward the men’s section.

Vert bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if, maybe, he’d gone a little too far with that one. Sure, it was true, but it wasn’t as if any of them knew much about him. But he’d wanted to one up Stanford, so he’d let it slip, more or less, just what his idea of “fun” used to be.

Oops.

Vert continued through the store, trying to find things he thought everyone would like. There were premade foods, of course – stuff in cans and boxes and those weird half-paper, half-foil bags that pasta always seemed to come in – but he wanted to make sure they had _other things._

And those other things included frozen vegetables, hot dogs and hamburgers, a lot of sausages, enough lasagnas to fill his freezer, a ton of bagels – he made sure to get the everything bagels he remembered Sherman mentioning – and a singular box of pancake mix.

They were _pancakes._ The box would probably sit in the back of his cupboard for the next… however long this was going to go on for.

And Vert really didn’t know how long this _would_ go on for. Defeating the Vandals and Sark? That was going to be a hell of a job and an even bigger war. There was no telling if they’d manage it in two weeks or in two years. Or maybe longer.

He wanted to feel more… something about it. Something that wasn’t glee at having friends, or excitement at being able to do something that mattered, or eagerness to take on things with a car with a _chainsaw_ in it. And god, Sage was right, the cars _did_ key themselves to their owners. A chainsaw in the hood was _definitely_ up Vert’s alley.

He shook it off, trying not to feel weird about wanting this war to last basically forever, and turned off toward the household section again. Specifically, he headed off to the section with all the linens. He had _no_ idea what those aisles were called, because they were all labelled separately.

In the linen section, Vert found Sherman studying thread counts in various sheet patterns and Agura stacking pillows into a grocery cart behind Sherman.

Vert raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?” he asked. “How many pillows does one girl need?”

Agura gave Vert a flat look. “They’re for Stanford,” she said, drily. Vert tilted his head, amusement painting his face. “He asked nicely.” She shrugged, grabbed a green and grey blanket set and chucked it into the cart. “Sherman, why are you looking at thread counts?”

“Spinner gets rashes on lower counts,” said Sherman, without looking up from what he was doing. “And from polyester sheets. Trying to make sure he doesn’t drive us crazy when he can’t sleep.”

“Considerate,” said Agura, shaking her head with a light chuckle. She sighed and stretched her arms over her head. “So, you seem to have uh… food handled?” She said it like a question and with good reason, considering the weird mish-mash of shit that was in the bottom half of the cart.

Vert shrugged. “Not me, the guys,” he said, by way of explanation. He looked and Sherman and grimaced. “Minus him,” he added.

Sherman shrugged, tossing a sheet set into the cart full of pillows. “I tend not tot get lumped in,” he said, absently.

“Why not?” asked Agura, leaning against the handlebar of the cart, her head tipped to one side. “I’d argue you’re the most ‘guy-looking’ guy out of them.” She cast a look at Vert. “Maybe except for Mr. Socket Wrench and Jock Boy over here.” She winked at him and Vert rolled his eyes.

“Uh huh,” said Vert, leaning against his own cart. “You know, I’ll take that over pretty boy.”

Agura grinned. “Oh you’re _very_ pretty,” said Agura, batting her eyelashes at him. “By regular standards, but we’ve got a doofus of a ninja and whatever the fuck Stanford is, I think they both outdo you in prettiness.”

Vert rubbed at his jaw, his ears flushing. “I dunno,” he said, letting a teasing tone enter his own voice. “I think Sherman wins the pretty contest out of the five of us.” Sherman snorted and shook his head.

“What about me?” asked Agura, cocking her head to one side.

Vert grinned. “I think the closest you get is ‘mark me down as scared and horny’.”

Agura snorted, doubling over the cart as laughter erupted from her throat. “That’s _fantastic_ ,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I think I’ll keep you.”

Sherman snorted again. “Think it’s a little early for in-team romance.”

Vert made a face. “Dude I would rather make out with the enemy.”

“Hard same,” said Agura, slapping Vert on the shoulder. “Gross.”

Vert rolled his eyes and headed away from the two as they started arguing over what sort of pillows were needed for the couches – which reminded Vert, he was gonna need new furniture for the games’ room if they were all gonna fit in there. He vowed to head to the furniture section next.

First, though, he needed face cloths, washcloths, and some towels.

The next aisle held all of those things and Vert hesitated as he looked at all the racing and car themed towels. Oh, that was _so_ tempting. He really just wanted to buy a bunch of fucking racing towels.

And, considering he only had like four towels, he had a good reason to. Still, he should _probably_ be a responsible adult and by the nice towels.

Then _again_ , he thought, gaze swinging between the plain towels and the racing towels, it _was_ his money. Why wouldn’t he want to spend it on such awesome towels?

With a grin, Vert grabbed all the towels with racing themes that he could find, which added up to about twenty-nine towels. There _was_ a thirtieth, but it was kind of dumb and badly printed, so he put it back. He needed to have quality towels.

Vert’s next stop was in furniture, which was where he found Stanford, who was studying mattresses.

“Please don’t max out my cards,” said Vert, sighing.

Stanford pouted, his hands on his hips. “Honestly, Agura and Sherman were already here. I hope they didn’t take anything I’d want.” He frowned. “I think their things have already been taken outside, as well.”

Vert folded his arms over his chest and listened to Stanford whine and moan about the lack of options in the furniture. While Stanford whined, Vert picked out a new couch, a new pair of loveseats, some chairs, a bunch of bean bags, and everything else he’d wanted to grab, like a new coffee table and some end tables for the couches to put drinks on. He also grabbed a new TV console to make sure the new TV that Spinner had already picked out, according to Stanford, and _god_ it was a big TV, fuck, was going to fit on it.

By the time he finished, Stanford had _finally_ picked out his bedroom stuff and was talking to a woman in a Walmart vest. Vert slipped up to her to give all his item numbers to the woman. She smiled at him.

“We’ll have it taken out back,” said the woman, marking down something on her clipboard. “You can pick it up out back once you’ve paid for it.”

Vert nodded. “Thank you,” he said, smiling. With that, several very large men came by and started hauling everything away. The efficiency of this place was both really cool and really terrifying, he marveled, watching as the furniture he’d picked out disappeared around him with alarming speed.

He sighed. That was just about everything they needed. Now, he just had to go pay for it all and everything would be done. Hopefully he had enough cards for all this, just to make sure it would all be accepted with daily limits and all that.

Awesome. Looked like today was going just perfect.

And then, of course, everything was ruined.

“They’re on to us! Cheese it!” shrieked Spinner as he went sprinting by. Zoom laughed as he ran behind Spinner, grabbing Vert with one hand and Stanford with the other. Vert threw a look over his shoulder and saw the dozen security guards headed their way.

Well, fuck.

“Shit!” shouted Stanford. He sprinted off with Spinner and Zoom, Vert half a step behind as he shoved the cart and ran after the three.

Agura and Sherman looked up as the boys came at her and Agura sighed. She grabbed her cart, Sherman grabbed both of his, and they joined the stampede.

They ran without thought, without pause, with laughter and shouting and whooping as they all sprinted around and divided up to keep the guards on their toes.

Vert had never run that fast in a store in his life, and he found himself laughing as he followed Zoom through the twisting aisles and around the other customers and workers of the store.

They all met up again, sprinting for the fire exit and diving outside, all of them scattering to hide behind boxes and cars as the guards came by.

Vert held his breath, Zoom plastered to his side with a hand over his mouth to keep himself from giggling. Zoom grinned at up Vert, his eyes bright and mouth mostly hidden behind his hand.

The guards growled and grumbled, but ended up going back inside without finding any of them.

Slowly, the six emerged from their hidey holes, staring at one another to make sure they were all safe.

“I think we just got kicked out of Walmart,” said Agura, staring at the doors with wide eyes.

Zoom looked at the dozens of boxes and bits of furniture they’d gotten, his head tipped to one side. “Does that mean we get everything for free?” he asked, gesturing to it all. Vert saw all the things they’d asked to be taken out back, all sitting there in the afternoon sun, waiting to be picked up.

That was handy. But then…

Vert blinked. Right. They hadn’t actually. Paid for any of the bigger stuff. _Huh._

“Sure,” said Vert, sighing, “why not?” He cast a look down the street, to the car rental place not far from the airport. “Is anyone twenty-five? We need to rent a moving truck.”

Stanford raised his hand. Vert threw him his credit card. “Go get us a truck, Stanford, biggest one you can get.” He sighed. “And let’s get the fuck out of here before they realize we just stole like twelve grand in furniture.”

As Stanford ran off to get the truck, Zoom grinned up at Vert, his eyes bright. “I think I like it here,” he said, a light laugh in his voice.

Vert looked around at his teammates-and-sort-of-friends, watching as Agura and the Cortez brothers bickered playfully, and as Stanford disappeared into the parking lot down the street. He looked back at Zoom, who kept grinning at him.

Throwing an arm around Zoom’s shoulders, Vert pulled him close and chuckled, smiling back at Zoom.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think I do too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are my lifeblood. Feed me.


End file.
